The School of Greatness - 37 AJ Jacobs: Experiments in Lifestyle, Fitness, and Self Improvement

Episode Date: October 30, 2013

The ultimate lifestyle experimenter joins us today on The School of Greatness. He spent a year living Biblically by following every rule mentioned in the bible to the letter. He lived by George Washington's 110 rules of life for a few months, he even became a single woman for a little bit to investigate dating. He is also, simply one of the funniest speakers around these days. This is episode thirty seven and we're excited to bring you, AJ Jacobs.

This is episode number 37 with A.J. Jacobs. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Hey, greats.

Thanks so much for tuning in today again. I really appreciate you guys, and I hope you enjoyed the last episode with Chris Lee. Such an awesome time having him on and talking about really how to visualize and achieve all of your dreams. And today I've got a very special guest. His name is AJ Jacobs. He is the editor at large at Esquire Magazine and also the author of four, count them, four New York Times bestsellers. Really funny, really a funny guy. I met him recently at a speech that we were both talking at in Toronto and was cracking up the entire time he was on stage. Really intellectual and funny at the same time and an amazing writer. So I'm very excited to

bring him on. But I want to share the quote of the day that I think is going to be great for this episode. And it's by Naveen Andrews saying, if you don't take the chance to live life, what can you say at the end of it? I think it's interesting because a lot of people I see don't take chances. They're not going after their dreams. They're not living to the fullest. They're not going after anything because they're afraid to fail or they're afraid to get hurt. And what I've seen, which is really cool about what AJ has done, he's taking on life to the extremes. And in his books, he goes to the extremes with all these experience. He's like a

human guinea pig with his experience, living to this extreme with health and fitness, with the mind, with the spirit, with everything. He goes there and he documents them and journals them and writes about his process. So I'm very excited to introduce you to AJ and talk about these experiments and exercises and really how he's living to the fullest, going all out every day, practicing what he preaches in his writing. It's very cool. He's got some interesting stories he's going to share with you about how to maximize the

mind, the body, and the spirit, but also how he's done it in a funny way as well. So I'm very excited about that. With that, guys, let's get into this episode with the one and only AJ Jacobs. Hey, everyone. Thanks again for tuning in to the School of Greatness. I've got my man, AJ Jacobs, with me. How's it going, AJ? Good. Thank you for having man, AJ Jacobs, with me. How's it going, AJ? Good.

Thank you for having me, Lewis. Love it. I am very excited to have you on here because you're one of the funniest guys I've ever heard speak at a conference. Oh, my goodness. What are you going to say? You've got to say I'm not interesting at all so I can surprise you. Exactly.

Set the expectation low. No. Exactly. Set the expectation low. No, we met at Mastermind Talks, actually, which was in Toronto. And you were one of the most memorable speakers for me because of your humor and because of what you represent and what you stand for, which is for me, excellence and greatness. And you've been on these journeys, I would say, these adventures where you've dived deep into understanding yourself on multiple levels, right? Right. And thank you for those kind words. I loved your talk as well. So right back at you. I appreciate it.

And what you've worked on is really kind of the key areas of life, what it looks like from my point of view, is your body and health. You've also worked on your mind and your intellect. And then you've worked on your spirituality. Right. Yeah, I have done a lot of self-improvement because I, I needed a lot of improvement. I was, uh, I was quite the fixer upper. I still am. Now, why did you need a lot of improvement? What was, what was happening for you to be like, okay, I'm going to dive into all these areas of my life? Well, uh, I'll just take it one at a time. I mean, the, there's the

spirituality and that came about because I grew up with no religion at all. As I say in the book, I'm Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is Italian. But no offense, the Olive Garden's a great restaurant. But I wanted to learn about the Bible, so I thought one way to do it would be to dive in and live it and follow it as closely as possible. Follow all the hundreds of rules that are in the Bible and see what it really said. And that's what I like to do with all of my experiments. Dive in and just do it and live it from the inside out and then report back in my books and articles. it from the inside out and then report back in my books and articles.

Now, the spirituality side of things, did you feel like growing up that you didn't have a belief system or you didn't believe in anything? Well, I definitely did not have a belief system. And I wanted to see, I had kids, I wanted to see if there was anything I was missing. And I'm actually, after the experiment, I lived for a year by the Bible. I'm not religious in the traditional sense, but there are things about religion that I really like and that I've taken away. The community, the importance of having a strong support community, that's great. The idea of gratitude, that's awesome. that's awesome uh and uh and they do have some good ethical ideas i mean uh i would say you know seven or eight of the ten commandments are spot on what are the ones what are the ones that are not spot on well not the uh i think killing that's that's pretty good adultery pretty good uh coveting i think you need a little bit of coveting in life, but not too much because you want to have some ambition. But I guess coveting is when you go overboard and all you think about

is what you want and not what other people want. So that's the key. You got to think about yourself, but also about others. I think it's, you know, like whenever I fly, they say put your own mask on first before you assist others. And I think it's true. You've got to fill up your tank, your energy, your needs first before you can really serve others. If you're always putting others before you, then you're going to feel empty and unfulfilled.

Well, I'll tell you one thing I've learned just from reading and from living is that the happier I am, the more willing I am to help others. If I'm in a very bitter or selfish place, then I'm not going to be helping others. So to me, working on yourself is actually the same as working on the community because you feel better and you're more generous. I want to talk about gratitude. Something you said you learned from following the Bible to the T was gratitude. That was one of the main things you said.

So why is gratitude so important for you, for me, for everyone? Well, I think it's the one. It's like psychologists talk about it like it's the wonder drug. And I believe that. I mean, it is like, it's better than Paxil and Prozac and any of that stuff. Because if you, what I did, the Bible said to be grateful all the time. I would press the elevator button and I'd be thankful that the elevator arrived and opened the doors. Then I'd get in the elevator and I'd be thankful it didn't plunge to the basement and break my collarbone. So it was weird. Hundreds of things a day. It was nonstop. But you start to realize, you start to have this switch in perspective that there are hundreds of things that go right every day. And we focus on the three or four that go wrong. And that can be a real problem for our psychological state. That's a lovely little minor miracle. You were talking about your view.

So it is being thankful for those little things really makes a big difference. Now, did you notice a shift in your energy and your passion for life and for your love for other people in general once you started to be thankful hundreds or thousands of times every day based on what you're doing the rest of your life beforehand absolutely and it's also like when i was doing little small things like having a meal you know i would be thankful for the guy who grew the the farmer who grew the the chickpeas and be thankful for the the driver who drove the truck to the store and the cashier. So you start to realize, you know, everyone is involved. When you're eating something, it's not just you. It's like a whole community was involved. And I think that's a great outlook. I am also very thankful that I don't have to follow all the rules of the Bible, because I did that for a year.

And there are some that are just crazy. Like, you know, well, there's the classic. You can't shave the corners of your beard. And I didn't know where the corners were. So I just let the whole thing grow. And I looked like, you know, Ted Kaczynski. I looked to give you a sense sense i spent a lot of time at airport security i really did i would get grilled and then uh there was ones uh in the

hebrew scriptures they talk a lot about stoning adulterers and i uh i felt to if i was going to do this i should at least try to stone one adulterer. No way. You did not throw stones at someone. I did. I did. They were, well, I'll tell you how it happened. I was in the middle of the year and I was really getting into it. So I had on my robe and my sandals and my beard. And this guy came up to me and said, why are you dressed like that?

And I said, well, I'm trying to follow all the rules of the Bible from the Ten Commandments to stoning adulterers. And he said, well, I'm an adulterer. Are you going to stone me? And I said, well, yeah, that'd be great. And I took out a handful of stones because I had been carrying stones around waiting for just this moment. And I showed them to him, and they were small, pebble-sized. They weren't going to hurt him too much. He was very aggressive. He grabbed the stones out of my hand and threw them at my face.

So I thought, yeah, I know, I was surprised. So an eye for an eye, I tossed one back at him. And that's how I checked it off the list. So that, I'm very grateful, very grateful. I don't have to do all the things in the Bible. And that is one of the big lessons from that year is that you have to engage. You have to pick and choose which are the good parts of the Bible and which are not. And some people disagree with that. They say, that's just cafeteria religion. You're just picking parts out that you'd like.

And I always say, what's wrong with cafeterias? I've had great meals at cafeterias. That's what life is about is choosing the right thing. You know, you've got to roll up your sleeves. I like it. So what's the,

what's your, has your belief system changed since going through that year of research and practice to not believing religion to now having some other belief? Well, I do. I mean, we joined a synagogue, my wife and I, mostly so that our kids would have some basis in our heritage. And they can then choose later whether they want to be observant or if they just want to make fun of religion. Either one is fine with me as long as they're good people. So I have become more involved in religion. I love the community, as I say. I love the ethical system. The belief, I am still an agnostic. I would say I'm still a fence straddler where

maybe God exists, maybe he doesn't. But you've learned that gratitude and I guess what about loving everyone? I guess is that where you express your gratitude is like I love the person who did this for me or who's brought the food here. Is that kind of your approach to it? Exactly. I mean, yeah, the Bible has got some tough ones. Love your neighbor, but also love your enemy. I mean, that one is, whew.

So in that one, I found I couldn't really love my enemy, but forgiveness is also very important to your happiness. So holding on to those grudges, it may feel good in the moment, but it really wears you down. So just, you know, forgiveness, let it go as much as you can. And of course, I still have, I still have the asterisk. When I say to someone, I forgive you, I still remember what they did. But I try to make that asterisk as small as possible. Now, do you find it harder to forgive someone else or to forgive yourself? That is a good question.

I got to say, forgiving yourself is also a key to happiness. I mean, you talked about it on your, I think it was your last podcast, where you were talking about how you lost a game of handball. I think it was your last podcast where you were talking about how you lost a game of handball. And instead of dwelling on it, you say, all right, here's what I'm going to learn from it. And I thought that was great. I think that's so true. If you beat yourself up, then you're just going to cripple yourself. You're not going to get anything done. Are you the type of person that beats himself up a lot or have you shifted or did you ever? Well, yeah, I think constitutionally

I'm very good at beating myself up, but I make a, I make a solemn effort not to. And I think you can change your personality. I do think that that's one of the things i've learned from all these experiments is that you can make yourself happier more you can make yourself less obsessed with beating yourself up okay so what's the so to close the chapter on the spirituality what's the biggest takeaway you you learned from that that year and from practicing everything from then until now? What's the biggest thing you took away? Partly the gratitude. And the second part is the idea of fake it till you make it, which was huge in this experiment and all experiments. Because think about it this way, if you, I hate visiting the hospitals, but I had a friend in the hospital, I just didn't want to. But I asked myself, what would a good person do? And I acted as if I were a friend in the hospital. I just didn't want to. But I asked myself, what would a good person do?

And I acted as if I were a good person. So that's the key, act as if. And I forced myself to go to the hospital. And once you're there, it sort of tricks your mind. And you're like, oh, I'm in the hospital visiting a friend. I must be compassionate. And you become a little more compassionate. And they talk about this in cognitive behavioral psychology all the time.

You know, it's the idea if you force yourself to smile, the studies show it tricks your brain, you become a little bit happier. It's kind of creepy, but it works. So that's the idea. There's a great quote by a guy who founded Habitat for Humanity, which is, it's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. So this was a huge, like this happens all the time.

In fact, today it happened. You have a crisis of confidence. You're like, I don't know if this book is going to work out, this business is too much of a long shot. But you force yourself to act in a confident way. of a long shot, but you force yourself to act in a confident way. I force myself to send emails to clients saying how great I think this is going to be. And you kind of convince yourself. So this is a really important tool is the idea of self-delusion almost. Fake it till you make it. The upside of self-delusion. I love it. I mean, we can't all think positively right away, but if we're acting like we're positive and doing things, then hopefully it'll translate into feeling and thinking that way also.

Oh, yeah. I saw a video recently on YouTube from some research where they said that people are the happiest when they're expressing public gratitude for someone they care about. Oh, that's nice. And I was watching the video of people going through this experiment of them having them call someone they love and tell them how much they appreciate them. Right. And to see them light up and hear the reaction of their friend or their family member whoever it was was truly inspiring and they were just like i feel so amazing i'm so happy and they had some research and some study behind like doing this will increase your happiness by a certain percentage

or whatever but it was powerful to witness uh people actually doing it and kind of see the transformation instantly from average mood to like super happy so i think it's interesting that was the biggest thing one of the biggest things you took away from the spirituality and considering that was in the spirituality you know zone that you were in that gratitude was what the biggest thing you took away right so well it kind of reminds me i did another experiment called radical honesty and this is a movement that was started by a psychologist in Virginia who believes that you should never lie. But he goes further than that. He says, whatever's on your brain should come out of your mouth. There should be no filter. It's like that Jim Carrey movie. I mean, it's insane.

Did you do that? I did it for two months. Oh, my gosh. And in many ways, it was the worst two months of my life. Because, you know, you had to say, I had to say to my wife, you know, the classic, do I look fat in this? You have to say, yeah, you look like a whale. It's horrible. And I had to tell my boss I'd rather be doing something else.

So there were many, many parts that were terrible. Oh, we saw this friend of my wife's. She was friends with her in college, and we saw her at a restaurant. And the friend said, oh, we should all get together and have a play date with our kids. And I had to say what I was thinking, which was, you seem very nice, but I'd be happy never to see you again because I just don't have time to see my real friends. So no offense. But unfortunately, she did take events. So I learned that there are parts that you want a filter.

A filter is a good thing. But I practice what I like to call positive radical honesty, which is just what you described, just what you described, which is we sometimes never express to friends or mentors or family what we're grateful for. So one of the best parts of that experiment is I called the guy who hired me for my first job and told him how thankful I was. And I think he was a little freaked out because men aren't supposed to do that. They aren't supposed to express their emotions so openly but uh but i also think he was happy about it and i know i was i know i felt a lot better and i and i still when i think about it it makes me it makes me feel good so i recommend that just what you said calling mentors old friends and just saying uh you know thank you you meant a lot to me.

And what I think is cool is for the last, I think, year or year and a half on my voicemail, if you ever call me and I don't pick up, you'll hear in my message that I say, you know, leave a message, but before you do, let me know what you're most grateful for today. And it's always fun for me to just get voice messages. And I was like, oh my God, I'm so grateful for this and this and this. And it's like whatever they were calling me about, it's a better moment, you know, whatever it may be. So I really love that idea. I have not called you.

I like that. I'm going to do that. It's better than my other friend who said, leave a voicemail. I'm never going to listen to it because who uses voicemail? So if you need me, send me a text or an email. Exactly. That's hilarious. Okay, cool.

Well, I appreciate the share on that section. Now I want to move into the body. Yes. And you wrote another book. You're an athlete. Yeah. Yeah. And you wrote another book that is very powerful.

It's called Drop Dead Healthy. And I love all your taglines for all of them. It's like one man's humble quest for something. I love how you're humbly learning how to perfect something. It's so hilarious to me. So Drop Dead Healthy. I am the humblest man in the world. I am so humble.

You cannot believe it. Yes, Drop Dead Healthy. Now, this book is a New York Times bestseller, right? That's right, yes. I sell it in the airport. I think I still see it in airports all the time, and it's all over Barnes & Noble. But you wrote this book, and it was another experiment. And you took it.

Was it a year long, correct? Actually, it was like two years. I needed a lot of work on my body. Two years. My body was not in work on my body. Two years. My body was not in good shape. Yeah. So what was the goal for you? Spend two years and do the research on how to become the healthiest person alive, right?

Right. That was the idea. I'd say this was three years ago. I was in terrible shape. I wasn't skinny. I wasn't fat, fat. I was skinny, fat, which is the body shape where it's like a snake that swallowed a goat. But I was sickly all the time, no energy. So I decided I'm going to try to get healthy. I'm

going to test all the medical advice I can find. So thousands of tips. I'm just going to do what I can to change my diet, exercise, stress level, sleep, sex life, posture, how do I go to the bathroom? I changed that. Wow. You went to the extreme. I went every corner of my body. That's right. Every crevice.

So tell me what were some of the craziest experiments, maybe two or three of the craziest things you did. And let me hear about those. Oh, sure. Well, I mean, this was like three years ago, so it was just when the paleo movement was starting. So I got in on that a little, and I hung out with some of New York's top cavemen, and we did a caveman workout where we went out to Central Park

and no shirt, no shoes. And we tossed boulders around. We climbed trees and we, you know, a lot of people say, oh, did you drag women by the hair? No, we did not do that. But we ran and sprinted as if we were being chased by the saber-toothed tiger. So that was one. All the way to the other end, there's something called calorie restriction, which is a group of people who believe that if you eat very, very little, like if you're on the verge of starvation almost all the time, you will live a lot longer. No way. You will live to over 100 years old.

No way. There's some evidence that they might be right. Certainly in mice and monkeys, there's evidence. We haven't proven it in humans. I mean, the question everyone asks is, you know, yeah, you'll live longer, but who the hell wants to live longer? You're like that. If you can't have a waffle once in a while.

Right, right, right. But I did. to live longer if you're like that if you can't have a waffle once in a while right right i like but i did i went to the house of the guy who started this and and had a our dinner was a literally a blueberry for the appetizer and a walnut for the main course shut up so it was a very uh bizarre because you know out there there's so much crazy stuff you can do. You can literally find someone who says a hole in the head is good for you, and they drill holes in their head to change your electronic currents. So you've got to be very careful with who you listen to. To let the brain breathe or something, right?

Whatever science they come up with. Exactly. Wow. So what would you feel like was the best format for you to live a healthy life then? Was it doing something extreme and caveman, CrossFit, paleo style? Or was it living more of a balanced life and being aware? I think it's whatever you love, whatever makes you happy. So there are people who love the paleo, who love Tough Mudder, and that's great. If they love it, and that's going to help them exercise, that's great. For me, not as much. athletics, but to a more moderate degree.

But I think we all know that you can't sit on your butt all day. You have to move. So how do you do it? What I love is my treadmill desk. You probably read about them. It's a treadmill, and I just put my computer on top, and I walk all day long, and I write while I walk. It took me about 1200 miles to write the book. And since then I've probably walked about 2000 miles while writing and I love it. And it keeps me awake. It keeps me energized. Now, if I'm sitting

at a desk, I tend to get sleepy. So I, uh, And you can't get sleepy on the treadmill or else you're going to go off the back. So you wrote the entire book on the treadmill, right? Right. Probably most of it. There were times I had to sit down. But most of it, yeah. And so that I recommend a lot. And I'm very also into the quantified self-movement the idea that you keep

track of everything really uh yeah in the nike fuel band or whatever exactly i'm actually uh i use the fitbit the same idea and you know what else i find is uh is when i i wear the fitbit while i'm walking on the treadmill to try to get as many steps per day because my goal is at least 10,000 steps per day. And I have a group of friends who are also Fitbit users, and we compete with each other. We have a little circle. And so some people find competition very inspiring. I am one of them. Other people find it a turnoff, but if you find competition to be good motivation, I really recommend getting one of these trackers and then competing with your friends because then they trash talk you and you get to trash talk them. And it is just very, it's just a delight. I mean, that's what keeps me moving is the thought that at the end of the day, I can make fun of my friend Paul. Now, why is it valuable to track everything that you do throughout the day in order to keep a healthy life? As opposed to just saying, I'm going to do this five times a week and work out and stay healthy.

Why is it important? Well, because the studies show that the more you track, the healthier you behave. So if you weigh yourself every day, then you're going to be more aware of what you're eating. And if you have a pedometer, you walk more. So it's just an incentive to act in a healthy way. It's almost like a game then. You're like gamifying your life and you're trying to get it to the next level, the next, you know, get the mushroom and up your life or whatever it may be and, you know, become invincible.

You know, Mario is in very good shape. You know, most plumbers are fat and they're showing the crack. You never see Mario's crack. Exactly, exactly. So tell me about what's the biggest thing that holds people back from living a healthy life? I think the idea that they have to go to extremes, as you say. I think that little changes can make huge differences. So even if you just, if you have to sit at a desk all day, just promise yourself every 30 minutes you're going to get up and walk around for a couple hours.

That does wonders for you. Or if you don't have time to eat healthy because you've got a job that's all day, so you end up going to mcdonald's like just try to buy nuts one small thing you know or try to buy frozen vegetables i mean that literally if you have a microwave frozen vegetables takes 90 seconds and you're eating something so just don't be intimidated don't set the bar too high. Just start with, as they say, baby steps and steps are good as you know. Yeah, they are. Now, why did you allow yourself to be, you know, skinny, fat and out of shape and not healthy in the first place? What

was it that you told yourself mentally or where were you at spiritually at that place to be out of shape? Well, I think partly it's I'm married. And so I don't really care if I have a six pack. It's not going to do me any good. So I was like, ah, who cares about the body? But that's a bad way to look at it because the body and the mind are so dependent on one another. And all these studies, there's a great book called Spark by a Harvard psychologist that talks about how when you do athletics, you are smarter. It actually raises certain neurochemicals in your brain. Yeah, exactly.

I'll take that all day. neurochemical in your brain. I like that. Yeah, exactly. I'll take that all day. Yeah. I mean, for me, since I was, you know, there's always been the stereotype of the dumb jock. And since I was not a jock in high school, I was like, all right, that sounds good to me. But it turns out the science is the other way. It's like the smart jock. You should be out there exercising because that helps you concentrate and, uh, and it actually makes you smarter. I guess if you're, you know, if you're on the hockey rink all day and have no time for reading, that's when you get into trouble. But if there's a balance, you really are better off if you're moving around. Right, right. I love it. Yeah. I mean, for me, the body,

like you said, is so, it's so important to have a healthy body. In my mind, to be at the highest performing body that you can be on all levels, because that's going to increase my productivity, my creativity, my connection to the world, because I'm going to feel better about myself. And then mentally, I'll be able to have better thoughts. Yeah. And it kind of works together hand in hand. And that's the way I feel. I mean, you can't look at it working out as a waste of time. You have to look at it like here's a half an hour that's actually going to increase my productivity.

I won't be working for that half hour, but afterwards it will make me more productive. Right. Exactly. I love it. Now I want to transition into the know-it-all, which is where you, I don't know how you read so much, but you read. I had no life.

That was that much. You read the entire encyclopedia, right? Yeah. From A to Z. Exactly. And it was your one man's humble quest becoming the smartest person in the world and uh i just love the titles and so you read the entire encyclopedia and you have a picture

of it somewhere i think i saw ted's speech of you talking about and showing a picture and i was just like i haven't read you know that much from one book in my entire life of the encyclopedia that you read and all those. So it's very impressive what you've done to the extremes. Now, why did you want to become the smartest person in the world? Well, I didn't actually want to become the smartest, but I certainly wanted to get better from where I was because I felt this was about five, ten years out of college, and I felt I was forgetting everything I learned in college,

and I was spending too much time watching The Simpsons, South Park. So I thought, you know, let me see if I can try to improve my brain. And I got the idea from my dad, because he started to read the encyclopedia when I was a kid, but he didn't finish. He made it up to the middle of the letter B, like around Boomerang or Bolivia. I don't know where it was exactly, but I thought, okay, let me see if I can finish what he began and try to become, you know, stuff all the knowledge that I can into my brain. And so that's what I did. I read for, you know, eight hours a day and I drove my wife crazy with all of my extraneous facts.

She started to fine me $1 for every irrelevant fact I inserted in the conversation. So I don't know what we'd be talking about, like animals. And I'd be saying, oh, you know, opossums have 13 nipples. And she'd be like, okay, that's a dollar. You are not allowed to say things like that. I did not know that, but now it's a good fact 13 nipples exactly that is very important in a circular pattern fyi this is awesome oh man you must be like really good at jeopardy or something right well i did go on who wants to be a millionaire asaire as part of the book. No way, did you? Yeah, yeah. So, and it was, I did okay.

I did, it was interesting because the nemesis in the book is my brother-in-law, my sister's brother. And he is, I think he'd be okay with me saying this. He is a bastard. He is just really cocky. He's a true know-it-all. He's always making fun of me. So I got on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And he was

my lifeline. And I got to this biology question, a $32,000 question. And I didn't know it. So I was like, oh, finally, he can help me because he was a biology major at Harvard. I'm like, all right, thank God. So I called him and he totally blew it. totally choked he didn't know the answer so i it was bittersweet because i humiliated myself on national television but i brought him down with me so it was like uh uh you know and ever since i keep asking him for my thirty two thousand dollars wow so did you use another lifeline or did you go with an answer and not get it right yeah i went with an answer and did not get it right so what was the question in the answer in the answer the question was what is the meaning of the word

erythrocyte and the choices were something like uh white blood cell red blood cell serum or platelets what was the real answer what do you think what's your guess maybe i should have called you man say say one more time because I'm like not able to. Red blood cell, white blood cell, serum, or platelets. And what is the meaning of the word? Erythrocyte. Erythrocyte. I would take C.

Which is what? I don't even know. Platelets? No, the other one. Platelets was the last one. What was the third one? Oh, serum. Yeah.

That's what I went with too. You and I, we are wrong. It was was red blood belt so i'll never forget that i will never forget that one i've forgotten the most of the facts but not that one but i will tell you it was very and i just wrote a piece on linkedin uh about the best four most important business lessons from all of history because i did take away wisdom among along with the the opossum nipples there was some actual wisdom so uh what are those four lessons well one of them is just you got to embrace rejection not if if not embrace it at least expect it because history you just read about there's so many people who were just rejected over and over and over again, but they had perseverance and they

finally found one person, that's all it takes, who believed in them. And then they were able to put out their product that changed the world. Like Chester Carlson, the inventor of the Xerox machine, everyone was like, no way, who cares? Turned down by 20 companies and then it changed history. There's the whole idea of adapt or die. That's a very important idea. They call it pivoting now a lot in the entrepreneurial world. You really have to be nimble. So if something's not working out, you have to change direction, and you have to be good at that. And there's one story that sticks in my mind. There is this guy, Thomas Welch, who was a minister in the 19th century, and he was really into anti-alcohol, the temperance movement. So he invented this.

He thought it was terrible that people were drinking wine in church. So he developed non-alcoholic wine. He called it Dr. Welch's Unfermented Wine. And it was grape juice. But it flopped. No one cared. No one wanted to drink grape juice in the churches. But then his son took over the business and was like, you know, this fake wine thing is not working. Let's just market it as a tasty treat for kids. And as you know now, like, you know, every kid in kindergarten has a juice box. So that was a brilliant way to just shift your focus. Amazing. And I'll just give you one more, which was the idea of chutzpah, or cojones, I guess is another

way to say it. You know, none of the great historical figures were discovered or made an impact by staying in their rooms. You know, you have to get out there, you have to network. There's one story of the famous poet Langston Hughes, who was a waiter at a hotel in Washington, D.C. And this very famous poet came in to have breakfast, and Langston Hughes slipped his poems to the famous poet with his breakfast. And that's how he got discovered. And so sometimes you just have to take those risks and put yourself out there. You got to have balls.

You got to have balls. And you got to believe in yourself first in order for anyone else to be enrolled in believing in you. Exactly. Or at least pretend to believe in yourself. Fake it till you make it, like you said. Yeah. I love it. Okay.

So that was your quest about becoming the smartest person in the world. And then you have another quest that was your life as an experiment, and this is all about improving yourself. And tell me a little bit about that one. Well, that one was sort of a series of experiments where I tried to do more of a month-long lifestyle change and see how that happened. This was many years ago, so I decided to try to outsource my life. So I hired a team of people in Bangalore, India to do everything

for me. So they answered my phone and answered my emails for me, and they argued with my wife, and this was the greatest month of my life because I just sat back and read books and movies. And our mutual friend, Tim Ferriss, actually, he excerpted that. That was an article in Esquire, and that makes up the eighth chapter of his book. Really? For our work week. Work week, yeah. So he used your book as an example?

He just reprinted the article. Oh, wow. That's awesome. So, yeah, it's funny. He just reprinted the article. Oh, wow. That's awesome. So, yeah, it's funny. For a while there, I was like almost every other person who knew about my work was from Tim.

Yeah. Yeah. Such a big book. And another one was I tried George Washington when he was a kid. He wrote 110 Rules of Life. Young man, not a kid. And so I tried to follow those and be a better person. And I'll tell you, the one of George Washington's that made a big difference in my life, it's a weird one because it wasn't one I expected. It was to have good posture. That guy is like,

he was famous in the colonies for having really good posture, standing up straight. And so I tried it and it made me feel different. It made me feel more confident and more energized. And it turns out just he was ahead of his time because there are Harvard studies just in the last few years that if you stand up straight in a power position, like shoulders back, chest out, it actually affects your testosterone level and you become more confident. So there's a great TED talk about that, by the way. I forget the name of the psychologist,

but she talks about- I remember this, the power position. She had pictures of different people with their arms out or their arms behind their head and the different power positions you could be in. Yeah, that's the one. It was amazing. Yeah, I forget what it was called too, but it was a great one. So that changed my life.

That goes back to the same idea of fake it till you make it. If you walk or carry yourself in a way that's sort of bold and open, then you will become more bold and open. So what do you feel like is, why were you on this journey? Well, partly it's the idea of curiosity. I once interviewed Alex Trebek of Jeopardy, and he said, I'm curious about things, even those things I don't care about, which I thought was a nice quote. So that's my idea. There's so much in the world that's fascinating. You just got to dive in and learn about it.

I think also I do believe that in terms of improving yourself, the best way is to just do it, sort of the whole Nike idea. Just dive in and experiment. And sometimes it's going to be a huge failure, and sometimes you're going to make your life 100% better. So it's all about just testing things out. And there's lots of science about if you do something different, it's better for your brain. Otherwise, your brain sort of creates these ruts, these neurological ruts. So even if it's just brushing your teeth with a different kind of toothpaste every week or taking a new way to work so you don't get stuck in the same pattern, to me, that's one of the keys to happiness.

So you don't get stuck in the same pattern. To me, that's one of the keys to happiness. I think there's a documentary called Happiness on Netflix that talked about that. Oh, really? Yeah, it's actually interesting. It's doing something different every day. You know, brushing your teeth with your left hand as opposed to your right, whatever it may be. And so they interviewed them and said, what was the key to living long? And they said being healthy.

I mean, sorry, being happy. Right. Staying happy. And so they said, okay, how do you become happy? And they said, you know, a big part of their happiness was community and connection and being part of the community. Also, they said sleep was a huge part. And they take lots of naps throughout the day. was a huge part.

And they take lots of naps throughout the day. One of the women was like, I drink one shot of sake every night to put me to sleep by nine o'clock. I will tell you, that's certainly one of the conclusions I found from the year of living healthily. In fact, there's this disease called orthorexia, which is when you're too obsessed with being healthy.

It's an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy food because you can't, and that can cause stress. And so if you are so obsessed with being healthy and working out that you can't go out to dinner with your friends because they don't have the right food, you know, that's not healthy because being part of a community, having friends, that's very important. So, you you know when you go out to dinner and uh you're you're being healthy so people should not feel guilty about going out to a restaurant i would say my biggest fear is well i'm very uh i think i'm fearful of lack of control especially with my kids you know i don't know there's so many. What's going to happen to them? Is something bad going to happen? But I think one of the keys to happiness is that you have to realize you don't have total control and you have to accept that. It'll be a lot less stressed out.

So that's what I'm working on. Because I do believe, you know, you can do everything right, but just get a bad break. And I think that helps. If you have that mindset, it helps to be more compassionate to people who did get a bad break. You know, if you're unemployed and, you know, at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, it's not because you're lazy necessarily or dumb or a bad person. It often has a lot to do with your luck. And you do make your own luck to some extent, but you can't make your own luck entirely. Interesting. What do you feel like is your, your purpose and your vision for the rest

of your life? Well, I, I am happy in a, I am happiest when I know that the work I'm doing might be helping other people. I, you know, this sounds cheesy and I would never have said this when I was like in my twenties or even my thirties, but now I'm in my forties and I'm like, you know, that is when I get emails from people saying, oh, your book on health made me want to become healthier. Your book on the Bible made me more grateful. That is like gold to me. So if I can keep doing that, then I will die

a happy man. Now, what is it about that feedback that you love so much and why do you live for that, to be of service to serve others in your journey? Well, there is some scientific data about how helping others actually gets the pleasure centers of the brain, the old reward centers, the same ones that cocaine lights up are lit up by helping others. It's called helper's high.

So I guess that's what I'm trying to go for now, the helper's high. So it's not about other people. It's just getting me high. I want to finish with the final question, which is, what is your definition of greatness? Two words, Lewis Howe. I love it. But aside from that, I think it would be, I think, a sense of passion. I think a sense of passion because that is everyone I read about in the encyclopedia. The great things they did were motivated by a passion.

And many of them was a passion to help others, you know, help yourself and help others. So to me, that's like the key ingredient. It's ajjacobs.com is my website. And I also am on Facebook slash AJ Jacobs, AJ Jacobs Twitter, the whole thing. I'm on all those various media outlets. Awesome. So make sure to connect with AJ everywhere he is online. And check out his books if you were inspired by any of the information

he shared with you today about the body, about the life experiments, about the intellectual mind. Go ahead and check out his books. They're all on AJJacobs.com. AJ, thanks so much, man. I appreciate you.

Oh, thank you. I love being on. And yeah, keep doing what you're doing. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much. And there you have it guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode with AJ. Super smart guy. I love his stories and his approach to life.

And I hope you guys are really stepping it up in your lives, doing whatever it takes, going anywhere and everywhere to get the most out of your mind, body, and spirit. And again, AJ is just a great testament to some of the experiments that you can take for yourself each day to get to the next level for yourself. Achieve those dreams and really take it all to where you want to be in your life. So hope you enjoyed this.

Please check out schoolofgreatness.com for the show notes. And also, if you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you shared it with your friends over on Twitter or Facebook or Google Plus or Instagram. Post a picture on Instagram where you're listening to this episode. I would greatly appreciate it. And with that, guys, you know what? You guys know what to do. You guys have been here before.

You know what to do. All you got to do is go out there and make sure to do something great. ស្រូវតែរាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពី Outro Music